You, Me and a Machine : A Qualitative Study of AI-guided Couple Conflict Repair

Sammanfattning

AI is increasingly used for emotional reflection, relational advice and difficult conversations. Situated within media and communication studies, the study examines AI as a mediator that can structure intimate communication. The study is based on semi-structured interviews conducted with the participating couples after they completed a conflict repair session with an AI as a facilitating guide. Drawing on mediatization theory and Hochschild’s concept of emotion work, the analysis suggests that for the five participating couples, the AI-guided format appeared to slow the conversation. Some participants also described that the format made disclosure feel less risky. In these cases, the AI seemed to create a third position that these participants could orient towards together. In doing so, the study extends mediatization theory. It moves from the medium as a channel to the medium as a structuring presence in intimate interaction. But the contribution does not stop at structure. The analysis of these cases also asks what the medium appeared to generate within the complexity of the exchange: the conditions, positions, and possibilities it seemed to bring into being. What stood out across these cases was not a change in the content of what partners said, but a change in its conditions. The AI seemed to alter the terms of their emotion work: generating a third position they could orient towards, and shaping who spoke, who listened, and how accountability was made speakable. A central finding is that, for some participants, the AI-guided format appeared to create conditions in which existing relational skills could be used more deliberately and that the AI prompt both protected participants and shaped the study. The AI prompt was designed to be less therapeutic and more facilitating. This made the session more ethically safe, but some participants expected the AI interaction to be more emotionally responsive. The thesis therefore also offers a reflexive account of the ethical dilemmas of researching AI within an intimate setting.